


Pyrrhia, Televised

by Skaapsteker



Category: Wings of Fire - Tui T. Sutherland
Genre: Adding tags as I go along, B-Movies, F/M, Internet Challenges, Modern Technology AU, Multi, One Shot Collection, Polyamory, Social Media
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-08-15
Updated: 2017-12-20
Packaged: 2018-12-15 21:28:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 9,865
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11814534
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Skaapsteker/pseuds/Skaapsteker
Summary: Pyrrhia is a land of dragons who possess advanced telecommunications technology.(Based on a Tumblr post.)





	1. Queen Ruby's Educational Program

**Author's Note:**

> The idea for this fic (and some of the specific scenarios, including this one) come from this Tumblr post: wings-of-fire-aus.tumblr.com/post/164022251339/wings-of-fire-modern-au-the-dragonets-cave
> 
> And before anyone asks: despite their otherwise advanced technology, dragons in this AU still use scrolls as well books, for the reason that it’s probably tricky to flip pages when you have claws. Books are manufactured more by tribes whose claws tend to be shorter (NightWings have pretty short claws if you look at the “Guide to Pyrrhia” illustrations, so they have a lot of books and not too many scrolls, while RainWings, with their sickle-like claws, have very few books - also, RainWings in this AU aren’t completely illiterate like they are in canon).

After the SkyWing throne passed to Ruby, the television program _Scarletfest_ came to the end of its decades-long run. Many breathed a sigh of relief that history’s most depraved show was finally over, but the Sky Kingdom’s airwaves had a problem: namely, gaps in television schedules.  
 _Scarletfest_ had been broadcast live on Channel 1, and on several other channels at later points in the day. Since the dawn of Pyrrhian TV, in all of the kingdoms that had it, those had been time slots reserved for subject matter of the queen’s choosing. The Kingdom of the Sea had animated adaptations of Queen Coral’s myriad stories, the Mud Kingdom had sibs movies (mostly sponsored by Moorhen), and, up until now, the Sky Kingdom had gore-filled gladiator battles.  
Now, though, those time slots turned to static, like the Sand Kingdom’s had been for the past twenty years.  
“It’s almost like we don’t even really have a queen,” grumbled Plateau, a known pro-Scarlet noble, on his SnoutBook page, earning him a barrage of dislikes. Some Ruby supporters were similarly impatient, but generally kept it to themselves; Scarlet had left the Sky Kingdom in a sordid kind of shambles, neglecting the common folk in favour of her sick bloodlust, so filling gaps in television schedules wasn’t exactly at the top of Ruby’s priorities.  
They didn’t have to wait too long, though. A mere two months after Scarlet’s deposal, Ruby lay in front of the cameras, making her announcement directly from the throne.  
“I have finally made the long-awaited decision about what to broadcast on the royal time slots.” she said, her red scales almost luminous in the sunlight. “As all of you know, I support the development of mutually beneficial inter-tribe relationships through all means possible. To further this goal, I have decided to replace Scarletfest with an as of yet unnamed animated series for dragonets.”  
Most of the audience stayed silent, but a handful of daring dragons began to whisper amongst themselves.  
“The series will star eight dragonets,” Ruby continued, ignoring them, “one from each tribe, as well as a SkyWing-MudWing hybrid. It will primarily focus on the themes of equality and cross-tribe relationships.” She looked directly into the largest camera. “Anyone interested in providing material for this should come to the Channel 1 offices within a month. I would especially like non-SkyWings and SkyWing-MudWing mixed families to get involved, so that they can make sure that their tribes and ways of life are portrayed accurately.”

After the announcement spread to every corner of Pyrrhia, to the permafrosted top of the head to the tail-tip in the SeaWing archipelago, there wasn’t as much backlash as Ruby and her advisors had feared. Sure, there was some - Narwhal of the IceWing royal family made a whole Triller thread about how Ruby was “bringing her kingdom to shame with her insidious agenda”, and a troll of uncertain tribe spammed the royal SnoutBook page with “HYBRIDISM IS ABHORRENT” about thirty times before having their account taken down.   
But for the most part, the responses were positive. Queens Thorn and Glory both publicly mentioned support for the idea, and Ruby’s advisors quickly informed her that the SandWings and RainWings wanted the show to be broadcast in their kingdoms as well. In response to the troll attack, Typhoon, a SeaWing-IceWing medical student, Trilled “So glad #QueenRuby’s planned show has a hybrid char! Nvr saw any dgns like me as a dgnt. Even tho it’s a show for dgnts, still gonna watch it. I’m excited!” And Bundlr went wild over it, making concept art of what they thought the characters should look and act like, as well as writing up scenarios that they thought should be in the show, all organized under the tag #Revolutions in Ruby.  
“Your show sure is generating a lot of talk,” Vermillion noted as Ruby did an online check on the soon-to-be director, a young female named Mistral.  
“Yes. And that’s just what Pyrrhia needs.” the young queen replied.

After only a few weeks, the show’s contributors were fully gathered and the first episode’s script was finished, with the animation in the storyboarding phase. It was probably the fastest-created series in Pyrrhian history (not counting Coral’s adaptations, as these were essentially pre-written), which went to show that when a queen was involved, dragons could mobilize pretty darned fast.  
The main octet had names, designs, and well-defined personalities. Nimbus the SkyWing was a hardworking dragonet by nature, but she also knew how to have a good time. Sphagnum the MudWing was an ambitious scrollworm, as well as bigwings to his sibs. Creosote the SandWing was a nature-lover, always kind to all but her prey. Iridescent the RainWing had a quick wit and a love for making crafts, which he usually gave to his friends. Pipefish the SeaWing was outgoing and silly, always cheering everyone up. Saxifrage the IceWing was shy and introverted, his biggest flaw being his pushover nature. Mistchaser the NightWing was a daredevil whose impulsiveness often landed her in trouble. And Pika the SkyWing-MudWing hybrid was a dreamer with a serious penchant for gathering all the treasure he could. All of these characters were voiced by dragons from the actual tribes of the characters they portrayed.  
It was fantastic.  
There was still one big problem, though - the show didn’t actually have an official name yet. Most of the crew took Bundlr’s cue and referred to it as _Revolutions in Ruby_ in their conversations and documents, but Mistral, as well as Ruby herself, thought this title was a little too grand for a dragonets’ show. Ridge, the head of the animation crew, suggested _AllWings_ as a title, which gained some traction before Cinnabar pointed out that the term “AllWing” was used for a folkloric type of hybrid, which the show had nothing to do with.  
Finally, Sleet, Nimbus’ voice actor, came up with _The Harmony Kingdom_.  
“We could edit the script a bit and say that that’s where it takes place,” she said, and Mistral agreed. The show’s main setting was originally conceived of as a small town in the Sky Kingdom’s valleys, but some members of the crew, Sleet included, felt that the show taking place in a specific existing kingdom might dampen the “all the tribes living together as one” atmosphere. (Mistral didn’t think that concern made too much sense, but the title suggestion was too good to pass up.)  
And so, only four months after Ruby came to power, the first episode of _The Harmony Kingdom_ was ready to air. 

The pilot of _The Harmony Kingdom_ was broadcast in the Sky, Sand, and Rain/Night Kingdoms. The response was immediate - SnoutBook, Triller, and Bundlr erupted with joyful comments, and Bundlr in particular experienced a rapid influx of fanart.  
Queen Ruby was proud of herself. It wasn’t really a big thing, compared to everything else she had done for the SkyWings, but it wasn’t just for the SkyWings anymore - it was something that anyone from any tribe or mixture of tribes could enjoy (provided, of course, their mind was open enough).  
A couple of days after that first broadcast, the pilot aired in the Sea Kingdom as well. The Mud Kingdom had followed their lead by the time that the third episode came out, and, despite mainstream resistance, Queen Glacier eventually gave the green light for the show to be aired in the Ice Kingdom.  
Ruby may have been royal to the SkyWings only, but she’d won every tribe’s favour now.

If one went online and searched for _The Harmony Kingdom_ , one would think that the adolescent and adult fans were those for whom the show had the most value. After all, they were the ones drawing fanart, livetrilling new episodes, critically analyzing background character interactions, and hyping over the fact that Creosote smiled while looking at Iridescent in the latest episode.  
But the young dragonets who watched with their families were the ones who truly benefited the most. They were the ones being taught equality from a young age, the ones who’d grow up to respect all dragons no matter what they looked like.  
And, hopefully, they’d be the ones who’d grow up to understand.


	2. Master Hacker Qibli

On his fourth hatching day, Thorn gave Qibli a newfangled computer as a gift.  
“For me?” Qibli asked, resisting the urge to rub his eyes. “What is this a reward for?”  
“It’s not a reward for anything,” said Thorn. “Although I’m not saying that you haven’t done anything worthy of one. It’s just a hatching day present. You can do whatever you want with it, as long as you keep it under two hours a day and don’t get any of us in trouble.”  
“Thank you,” Qibli said, awed.  
“No problem,” Thorn replied. “I already started it up to install a proxy, so you don’t have to do that. Also, your password’s written on a sticky note on the inside. Memorize it, then rip it up and throw it away so no one sees it.”  
“Alright,” he breathed.  
For a while, Qibli was content with just surfing the Web and typing random thoughts into his documents.  
“A while” was exactly three days, after which he decided to spread his wings and fly into the world of coding, spurred on by an article about how exactly various applications worked. It didn’t take him long to learn - there were no shortage of books, scrolls, and online articles on the subject.  
The next level came when he mentioned his new coding hobby to Tawny over lunch, and she suggested that he should extend his reach and become a hacker as well.  
“I’ve got some experience with it myself,” she confided, and Qibli agreed to let her teach him the basics in their spare time. After a couple of weeks, he ended up outstripping her in skill, finding new tips and tricks in the Scorpion Dens of the Web as well as through deduction.  
Qibli didn’t actually use either skill that often - he modified the code on a couple of his applications, and he once messed with Parch’s predictive text as a prank, but nothing beyond that. Not that many dragons in the Den had computers (or even phones, for that matter), so if he did anything too flashy, he ran a real risk of putting himself in danger. Still, he knew his way all around computers, and that was quite impressive in and of itself.

When Qibli was sent to Jade Mountain Academy, though, his technological talents moved from “discreet and barely used” to “very much used and not all that discreet anymore”.  
Jade Mountain was like the SandWing palace - all shot through with radio signals, like intangible bugs fluttering through the air. Qibli had brought his beloved laptop, and at the beginning-of-the-year assembly, after the special introduction for royal students, Principal Sunny personally handed out flip phones to everyone. Each of them was made of jade-green plastic and had letter-stickers spelling out each student’s name on the back.  
“Seriously?” Qibli heard Prince Winter snort, peering indignantly at his new phone. “A _flip phone_? These haven’t been seen in the Ice Kingdom for at least ten years!”  
His sister, Princess Icicle, responded with a somehow even haughtier sniff. “Just goes to show how _primitive_ they all are.”  
Sunny chose that moment to mention that any student who lost, damaged, or disposed of their given phone would get two weeks of detention, and Winter groaned quietly.

A few minutes later, Sunny brought the assembly to a close.  
“Thank you for listening,” she said. “The assigned winglets are posted on the school site, so if you haven’t checked them out yet, please do so now.”  
A hush fell over the cavern, save for Tamarin whispering the website URL into her personal phone as she put in her earphones.  
Qibli pulled out his laptop, navigated to the “Who’s Where” page on the school site, and scanned the winglets for his name, quickly finding it in the Jade Winglet. Turns out, he was clawmates with Prince Winter (huh), Clay’s brother Umber, Prince Turtle of the SeaWings, a NightWing named Moonwatcher, a SkyWing called Carnelian, and a RainWing named Kinkajou.  
Interesting. He decided to click on each of his clawmates’ names, which he knew were links by their blue colour and the way they were underlined.  
Winter looked even more radiant in his picture than in real life (which was saying something), and was wearing an exasperated expression. He sat in front of a solid mass of ice (possibly the Great Ice Wall?), and Qibli could see the edge of another dragon’s wing on the right side of the picture - probably Icicle, suggesting that this was cropped from an original photograph that had the siblings together. The text didn’t give much information that hadn’t already been given in Sunny’s introduction, except that Winter was in the First Circle of the IceWing palace’s ranking system.  
Umber was holding a heron in his photograph, and the text described him as “known among his village for his kindness and peaceful demeanour”. Apparently he was especially interested in learning history.  
Moonwatcher was another interesting one. Her photo was taken in the rainforest, showing her with a flower bracelet and a bowl of fruit next to her. A decent chunk of the writing was dedicated to her life story: she’d been secretly raised in the rainforest, her mother Secretkeeper rarely had time to see her, and it wasn’t entirely clear who her father was. Qibli liked her immediately, and not for the tragic backstory - she had slightly rounded features, shiny green-black scales as well as two silver ones next to her eyes (like Fatespeaker’s but bigger), and big, worried-looking green eyes. Plus, the file mentioned she liked reading, so she was probably pretty smart.  
Kinkajou’s picture showed her about to jump from a tree, wings half spread and tail wrapped around a branch, her scales bright yellow with small pink spots here and there. She had been one of the test subjects in the infamous NightWing venom experiments, and was accidentally envenomed by Grandeur during the queen-determining contest shortly after her release (which certainly explained the three small scars on her wing membrane).  
Out of curiosity, Qibli checked his own file. He knew what picture awaited him, the one taken in front of an oasis not far from the SandWing palace. His text was fairly lacklustre, simply describing him as a young Outclaw and close associate to Thorn.  
Prince Turtle’s file was very bland, describing him as one of Coral’s multitude of sons. Apparently no one really knew that much about him or cared enough to find out, as the only other information given was that he liked writing and was “very happy to join Jade Mountain Academy”. (He didn’t look too happy in his picture, though - in fact, he looked like he’d just seen a scorpion.)  
Finally, Carnelian. She was currently being treated for emotional issues developed in the war, and decently good at math.  
 _This is certainly going to be an interesting year,_ Qibli thought.

The beginning of the school year turned out to be _much_ too interesting for Qibli’s liking, involving bombings and battles, multiple cross-kingdom trips, gratuitous use of animus magic, an ancient evil dragon with every power ever rising from the ground, facing his family again, having to save the world, and a disappointingly small amount of time actually spent in school.  
Fortunately, this didn’t last too long. After Queen Thorn decided to basically force him back to the academy, things got just regular-interesting again, and the techno-shenanigans began.

About a week after the defeat of Darkstalker, Qibli found Winter’s Bundlr. It wasn’t that hard to find when the bio was literally “Winter. 5. IceWing. Starting this blog anew after a massive shift in my opinions. I WILL BLOCK YOUR TAIL IF YOU SEND ME ANY ASKS ABOUT THE DIAMOND TRIALS.”  
Looking through the posts while Winter was out doing something, Qibli was struck with a brilliant idea.  
He grinned, turned off Safari, and began to code.

The next day, Winter entered his blog from his phone and found a few cute cat pictures in his inbox.  
“Who…” he began, then shrugged it off as “just an admirer who thinks I like cute things for some reason”.  
Except the same thing happened nine more times that day. And then ten more times the next day. And ten more times the next day.  
By that point, Winter already knew who was responsible, yet had no way to prove it. Things like this happened to him every single Technology class, and the happenings had a exceedingly strong aura of Qibli around them, yet there was no actual evidence pinning him to the pranks.  
And there was only one way for Winter to get evidence.  
“Qibli,” he growled at his clawmate as they entered their cave after school. “What is the meaning of this?”  
“What’s the meaning of what?” Qibli asked back, in his usual charming voice.  
“Don’t pretend you don’t know,” Winter grumbled, quickly logging into his blog and showing Qibli his cat-clogged inbox, which he hadn’t bothered to clear today. “I’ve been getting spammed with these pictures by a bot, and I don’t know how to get rid of it. So please kindly call it off.”  
“What do you mean, ‘call it off’?” Qibli asked. “I have no more relation to this bot than you have to a storm in the Sea Kingdom. Also, ‘heroicsnowprince’ is an amazing URL.”  
“I know it’s you, so _call it off_.”  
“Is there any concrete evidence?”  
Winter opened his mouth, then realized that “IT FEELS LIKE YOU” probably wasn’t the most compelling argument, mentally threw his talons up, and flopped down on his bed, muttering under his breath as he started on his homework.  
After finishing the homework, Winter decided to check Hailstorm’s Triller. He’d been doing that every day or so since he’d left the Ice Kingdom for good, as kind of a comfort thing.  
No sooner did he turn on his phone as he found himself suddenly inundated with texts from the rest of the Jade Winglet.  
 _What in the name of the Great Ice Dragon is going on?_ he thought, and checked his texting app.  
As it turned out, the entire group chat had been shifted to his phone. Somehow.  
Winter looked at Qibli. He was texting, as was Turtle.  
“ _QIBLI_.” he hissed. “THIS IS NOT HELPING YOUR CASE.”

The next day, the Jade Winglet went out for some after-school group hunting. As they headed back to the academy, Qibli almost dropped his mountain goat when Kinkajou materialized next to him.  
“Hey, Qibli,” she asked, scales deep purple with orange stripes, “what’s a meme? I keep hearing the Gold Winglet talking about them, but I don’t know what they are.”  
“It’s a special kind of online joke.” Qibli grinned. “I’ll show you some after we get back to the academy.”  
The look on Kinkajou’s face when Qibli explained memes to her was shocked, in a “what do you mean I’ve been missing out on all these incredible jokes?!” way.  
Not two hours later, she started her own Bundlr, with the truly glorious URL that was all-the-fruitiest-memes. She showed it to Qibli proudly - in the very short span of time that the blog had existed, she’d already reblogged seven meme posts and two pieces of Creodescent ship art.  
In the months to come, Kinkajou would occasionally send increasingly spicy memes over the group chat, and Qibli learned at the end of the year that Peril had been helping her with it.  
“Turns out I’m great with Internet jokes. Who knew? Certainly not me.” Peril said, shrugging her wings.

Qibli’s digital prowess, as one could easily predict, made Technology his best class at Jade Mountain. In fact, he got such high marks that several dragons, up to and including Queen Thorn, suggested that he should consider at least a part-time job in computer sciences.  
“Oh, I’ll consider it,” he said, grinning mischievously. “Just call me Master Hacker Qibli.”


	3. A Stellar Sense of Aesthetic

“Package for Fatespeaker!” called a SkyWing courier as he landed on the cliff outside the half-finished school and set down a fairly large package.  
“I’M COMING!” A few seconds later, Fatespeaker skidded to a halt on the cliff rocks, thanked the courier, and took the package, bumping into Clay and Sunny on her way back to her quarters.  
“Uh, what’s that?” Clay asked, peering at the crate.  
“It’s a shipment of glittery star stickers,” Fatespeaker replied. “I bought them online.”  
“What for?” asked Sunny.  
“Because…” Fatespeaker became suddenly and keenly aware that maybe this hadn’t been the best idea. “Because I think they look nice. I want to decorate my room with them.”  
“Oh.” said Sunny. Then she said something unexpected for everyone but Fatespeaker (who, of course, saw it coming). “May I have a few?”  
“Of course! Once I get them opened in my room, that is,” said Fatespeaker.

After she finished opening the package, Fatespeaker gestured to Sunny, who had been waiting at the entrance.  
“What are you going to use them for?” she asked, handing the soon-to-be-principal one of the tightly packed rolls of stickers.  
“Same thing as you, really,” said Sunny. “Except I’d put them on the walls of the science classroom rather than my office.”  
“Maybe you could even make the classroom into a star map, to help teach the students.” Fatespeaker suggested.  
“That’s a great idea, Fate!” Sunny said, then looked down at her paws. “I don’t remember what the constellations actually look like, though. I’ll go print some star charts off the Web.” She began to turn around.  
Fatespeaker grinned. “There’s no need for that! I foresaw that this day would be your lucky day!”  
Sunny turned back. “How?”  
Fatespeaker thought back to her former life, the life where she was nothing but a replacement for someone she’d never met. These had been miserable days, so she’d often bury herself as deeply as she could in whatever book she could find, trying to make herself invisible to the other dragonets.  
Little Fatespeaker would read any book from the false dragonets’ rather limited library, but she had one favourite: the _Illuminated Atlas of the Sky_. She’d spent many hours with that book, re-reading it countless times until the patterns of the constellations were etched deeply into her memory, the precise position of each star clearly mapped in her mind’s eye.  
“I’ve got the whole night sky memorized, Sunny.”  
“Really?” Sunny asked. “All thirty-eight constellations and two hundred brightest stars?”  
“Forty-one constellations and two hundred and twenty-nine brightest stars, actually. I’ll tell you where to put the stickers, and then you can check it out online. If I get anything horribly wrong, I owe you two lizards and a gift card.”  
“Okay, then. I believe you. Let’s go.”

Ten minutes later, Fatespeaker and Sunny stood in the main science cavern, looking up at the mostly smoothed-out wall. The opened package lay next to them  
“Which constellation should I do first?” Sunny asked.  
Fatespeaker thought for a few seconds. “The Flying Frog, probably. It’s at the very bottom of the sky in 3D models, so you’ll have to start next to the floor.”  
“Where should I put the first star?”  
“Right where you’re standing should do.”  
“Alright.” Sunny reached into the package, took out a roll, peeled off a sticker, and stuck it on the very base of the wall. “Where do I put the next stars?”  
“One a few inches northeast of the first, and a few more inches northwest. Then there’s another couple of stars right next to each other just above the northeast star.”  
Sunny quickly took out stickers, hovering her paw over the walls until Fatespeaker nodded and she could add them on. Not even two minutes had passed before the Flying Frog was finished.  
“One down, forty to go!” said Sunny, examining her work. “Which do you think I should do next?”  
“Jabuticaba’s Talons, probably,” said Fatespeaker. “It’s right next to the Flying Frog, but a little higher. There’s a lot more stars, though - it has eleven instead of five.”  
“Eleven isn’t that many, though,” Sunny noted, already holding another star with the tips of her claws. “Wait, is it? For a constellation, I mean? Which constellation has the most stars?”  
“Hyrax’s Crown has thirty-three.” Fatespeaker replied.  
“Okay, that’s a lot,” said Sunny, moving her arm over the rock. “Why is it called a ‘crown’, anyway? Because I’ve never seen a crown with thirty-three parts. Even Glory’s flower crowns only have nine or ten flowers in them. Or are they organized in a super-accurate outline of a crown?” As she spoke, she’d seen her friend nodding in her periphery, and now she’d stuck the star on the wall, smoothing it out with her paw.  
“Actually, the name’s symbolic,” said Fatespeaker, closing her eyes to let her memory take over. “Some old-timey - and I mean REALLY old-timey, like, not long after the Scorching - SandWing queen named Hyrax randomly decided to name a bunch of stars after herself because they looked sort of kinda vaguely like a dragon. Because she was SERIOUSLY full of herself, I’m guessing.” She paused, opening her eyes again. “Okay, you can stick that one on now!”

Just over two hours later, it was done. The science cavern’s walls were covered with constellations, from the Stalagmite Icicles to the Mother of the Mountains to the Garden Eel. Legends and symbols from all over Pyrrhia, painted in manufactured stars.  
“Told you I was good with this!” said Fatespeaker, nudging Sunny with her wing. “Is it online-checking time yet?”  
“As soon as I can get to my computer, it will be,” said Sunny. She turned around and walked out of the science classroom, leaving Fatespeaker to gaze at what she had helped create.

The next day, Sunny rushed into Fatespeaker’s quarters, amazement plain on her face. And the NightWing dragonet didn’t need any visions to know what was going on.  
“FATESPEAKER!” she cried. “You were right! You were totally right about all the constellations!”  
“I told you I knew it all!” Fatespeaker exclaimed.  
“Fate, you really are a genius!” Sunny pulled her into a hug. “Thanks to you, our science classroom’s now the best-decorated in all of Pyrrhia!”  
“Aren’t _all_ of the classrooms going to be the best in Pyrrhia?” Fatespeaker wanted to know.  
“Well, yeah,” Sunny said. Then she ended the hug and looked around the room.  
“How many stickers were there in that package, anyways?” she asked.  
“Three hundred. Why?”  
“What are you going to do with the seventy-one leftover stickers?”  
“Oh, I’ll think of something. Maybe I’ll decorate my own room, or maybe I’ll just stick them on myself. Or Starflight, if he agrees. And maybe the others, too. Whatever I’m going to do, it’ll be as incredible as those constellations I helped you put up.”  
Whatever else one could say about her, Fatespeaker had a truly stellar sense of aesthetic.


	4. Jade Mountain Movie Night

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Moon, Qibli, and Winter watch a B-movie.

Moonwatcher landed on the stargazing ledge, the moonlight and starlight dancing on her scales.  
“There you are, Moon!” said Qibli, flashing her a grin. His left wing was folded tightly against his body as usual, and his right was half-spread and resting on Winter’s blanketed (probably to keep the cold radiating from the IceWing’s body from giving him too much of a chill) back. “Homework got you caught up again?”  
“Yes.” Moon replied. “How did you get a WiFi signal up here anyway?”  
“It was easy,” said Qibli, spreading his left wing over Moon as she lay down next to him. “My laptop is its own hotspot.”  
“What movie are we watching, again?” Winter asked.  
“ _Sawshark and the Cave of Fragments_.” Qibli replied, navigating to said movie on FlixMotion. Moon lay down next to him, and he spread his left wing over her.  
“I’ve never seen a Sawshark movie before,” said Moon, looking at the movie’s “cover” with interest. It showed a female SeaWing with dark green scales and a headset, looking directly at the camera with a very stoic expression. In the background were three dragon heads: a scowling light blue female (probably the villain), and two smiling males, one of them blue-green and the other a deep orange SkyWing. The whole “cover” looked to be very finely drawn rather than photographed.  
“Me neither,” said Winter. “I’ve only ever watched movies made in the Ice Kingdom. This should be interesting.”  
Qibli pressed the “play” button, the movement of his talon heavy with dramatic flourish. “So let the show begin!”

The movie opened with Sawshark swimming over a sandy underwater plain. She had a bag around her neck and a waterproof watch wrapped around her right wrist.  
Winter squinted at the screen. “What’s up with that bag? Secret documents or something?”  
“In due time, Winter,” said Qibli, nudging Winter’s back with the elbow of his wing. “In due time.”  
On screen, Sawshark approached an underwater building made of dark grey stone, large and squat with the bioluminescence of dozens of SeaWings flickering within. She swam down to the building’s base and entered through a large archway.  
She swam up several floors until she reached a large office with multicoloured seashells embedded in the walls (Moon wondered if seashells were actually like that in real life, or if it was just special effects). At the centre of the room hovered a large ultramarine-blue dragon with vivid green eyes. His chin barbels were pierced at the tips, silver rings gleaming in the dim lighting of the office. He began to say something in Aquatic, and subtitles popped up at the bottom of the screen, written in letters that glowed the same blue shade as his lights.  
_Did you get anything interesting, Sawshark?_ he asked.  
Sawshark nodded, reaching into her bag and pulling out a gold chain necklace with an amethyst pendant on it. Moon felt a sudden rush of wanting, even though she wasn’t that much of a treasure dragon.  
_It wasn’t that difficult, Boss, she informed him. I didn’t see or hear anything weird, in the canyon, either. I doubt it’s the haunted place that everyone seems to think it is._  
“Why didn’t they just start off with her getting the necklace?” Winter asked. “They could’ve made it the most dangerous canyon ever.”  
“Because…” Qibli faltered for a moment. “Huh. I actually don’t know.” He pointed at the screen and clicked his tongue. “You got me there, moviemakers.”  
Even with the questionable decisions of the movie crew, Moon found herself drawn into the world on the screen. Sawshark’s boss was asking her whether the necklace had felt odd to her, to which she answered that it hadn’t. He looked at the necklace suspiciously, then motioned for Sawshark to give it to him, which she did. He pressed the amethyst, which sunk into the gold piece that held it and began to glow.  
_Just as I suspected._ he said, as the radiating light organized itself into violet shapes.  
_What is it?_ Sawshark asked, backing off.  
_It’s a recording,_ her boss replied.  
The shapes in the light were clearly dragons now, two SkyWings and a SeaWing sitting somewhere and talking in water-distorted voices. They were shown at an odd angle, from above but not quite a top view.  
“Do you think they’ll find it?” asked one of the SkyWings, shuffling her wings nervously.  
“They won’t, trust me,” said the other SkyWing, a male with a heavily scarred foreleg. “We’re the only dragons who have found the Cave of Fragments in the last four thousand years. Hopefully no one will find it for another few thousand, and we’ll be long gone by then.”  
“That’s good to know,” said the other SkyWing. Suddenly, she froze up.  
“What’s that beeping noise?” she asked, slowly looking around the space.  
Her scarred companion gasped as he looked directly into the camera. “By the Mother of the Mountains, it’s a recording necklace! Up there! On that rafter!”  
“I’ve got this!” the SeaWing cried, vaulting into the air. The projection filled with a rush of scales and dragon face, and then it abruptly cut off. The amethyst’s light dimmed, and then it popped back up to its original position.  
_What was that?_ Sawshark asked, scales flashing quickly. _Is it animus-touched?_  
Her boss shook his head. _No. It's a high-tech contraption sold in the lowest tiers of the underworld._  
_How did you know it was there in the first place?_ she asked.  
_I didn’t know for sure. As you know, there have been rumours of strange lights in that canyon for the past several years. I simply wanted you to bring back anything of value, so we could try to find out what’s causing it. And,_ he glanced at the necklace, laying limp in his talons, _you found the cause._  
So do I get to leave now?  
_No._ He turned around and plucked one of the larger seashells off the wall, revealing a cabinet behind it. _This mystery isn’t solved yet. You have to find the Cave of Fragments and whatever it is they hid in it. He laid the necklace into the cabinet and stuck the seashell back into place. You know who we are - we are the Royal SeaWing Investigational Order, and it is our duty to see each case like this to the very end._  
_But I don’t know where it is!_  
_Neither do I. But you have to find out. This necklace was deposited in our territory by a fellow SeaWing, and that means that this is our case to solve._

“This is so cliche,” Winter groaned. “Does any character in this movie have an actual good reason for doing anything?”  
“Well, this is the twelfth Sawshark movie,” said Qibli. ‘They were a lot better at that in the first four or five.”  
“Then why didn’t you choose one of the earlier ones?” Moon asked. She liked the movie, but then again, she reminded herself, she hadn’t seen a whole lot of them, so maybe she was just getting wooed by the special effects.  
“I wanted something we could watch without thinking too hard about it,” Qibli replied. “So stop thinking too hard and just enjoy the movie, you dorks!” He curled his wings tighter, nudging them slightly closer.  
“Says the King of Dorks,” Winter mumbled, but he was smiling ever so slightly, and Qibli responded with a brief chuckle that all but said “evidently I’ve taught you something about wit, my dear polar partner!” Moon leaned into his neck; it was a slightly chilly night, but his SandWing body heat made that just fine.

On the computer screen, Sawshark was walking on a beach with the blue-green SeaWing from the poster. The sun beat down on them at just the perfect cinematic angle.  
“That’s Pilotfish,” Qibli whispered. “Librarian. Technically an ex-member of the Investigational Order, but still authorized to receive intel. Somehow, he and Sawshark haven’t just kissed already.”  
“So, Pilotfish,” said Sawshark, after summarizing what had happened (and confirming that Pilotfish knew nothing about recording necklaces), “do you know anything about a ‘Cave of Fragments’? One of the dragons in the recording mentioned hiding something in it.”  
Pilotfish’s eyes glittered. “Yeah, I think I remember reading something about that!”  
“What exactly?”  
“It’s a cave that, according to old SkyWing folktales, is somewhere in the northern part of the Claws of the Clouds range. It’s said to be animus-touched - as in, the cave itself is animus-touched, not something in it - but the stories aren’t too clear on what the enchantment actually is.”  
“Oh,” said Sawshark. “Where did you read about it?”  
“It’s in several folktale collections, but the first known appearance would be in the _Pyrrhian Saga Repository_. The story in that volume was supposedly taken from an even more ancient scroll, but it’s never been found.”  
She cocked her head. “I’ve never heard of it.”  
“It’s a one-of-a-kind manuscript penned over six hundred years ago. My library’s backroom has it.”  
Thus followed a lengthy scene of Sawshark going to Pilotfish’s library and poring through the _Pyrrhian Saga Repository_ and reading the Cave of Fragments section thoroughly. This ended disappointingly, seeing as there was no real information about the nature of the cave. (Moon wondered how a story about a cave could be so uninformative about _the actual cave itself_.  
The next day, after a time-lapse video of the ocean horizon and subsequent pan underwater, Sawshark got called back to the Investigational Order’s headquarters. Her boss told her that he’d found the female SkyWing from the recording, and that she’d been imprisoned in a southern town for the past three years, charged with grand theft.  
And so the heroine winged it for the Sky Kingdom, with a carrying-pouch full of case documents.

“Let me guess how this is going to go,” said Winter, as a flying montage began. “She goes to the jail and talks to the prisoner, who gives her some blatantly obvious clues that she fails to piece together solely because the movie still has an hour of runtime left. Then, while in the town, she meets the male SkyWing, except she doesn’t know it’s him because he’s in disguise, and they do vaguely unseemly things in one another’s presence until she finds out that he’s one of the criminals. Then she finds the Cave of Fragments, and gets the SeaWing criminal charged while also finding out where the recording necklaces are from. And in the finale, she and Pilotfish continue to deny their feelings for one another.”  
Qibli was wearing skyfire, but Moon only needed his expression to tell that Winter had got it pretty much on the nose.  
“I do sort of enjoy this movie, though,” Winter added, as the montage drew to a close. “In a guilty-pleasure way.”  
“I don’t feel guilty, and you shouldn’t either.” said Moon. “Just enjoy it.”

Sawshark questioned the prisoner, Lightning, whose clues were indeed fairly lacking in wit and mysteriousness (“the Cave of Fragments can only be entered by the sharp-minded”). Since the Cave was a SkyWing tale, she decided (after consulting her boss by phone) to travel to the capital of the Sky Kingdom and see if she could gather any additional intel.  
Another flying montage later, and Sawshark was in the capital. (Moon later learned that the movie was shot in Scarlet’s early rule, but they didn’t discuss her to avoid potential controversy.) She bumped into an inn owner named Maroon, and ended up making romantic overtures towards him by her second night in the city. She also didn’t find any new info on the Cave.  
Sawshark accidentally left her document-filled pouch out one day, leading to Maroon finding out about her investigation. He broke down in front of her, confessing that he was one of the three criminals and that he’d painted the scars onto himself. He told her that he and his friends had found the Cave of Fragments through sheer luck, and that when they later got caught up in some sort of scheme where they had to steal from an old SkyWing noble house, they found it again hid the jewelry in there. She asked him where his last accomplice was, and he said he didn’t know. She then asked him where the cave was, and he quickly drew a map for her. Then he flew off into the night, convinced by ~The Power of Sawshark’s Love~ that he should turn himself in.

“Well, that whole Maroon thing sure was convenient,” said Qibli, and Moon and Winter agreed with him wholeheartedly.

Eventually, Sawshark (with Order-sent reinforcements in tow) flew to the Cave. However, only Sawshark could get in - the rest hit a force field at the entrance because they weren’t quick-witted enough… or something… it wasn’t easy to get under Moon’s scales, but this movie’s contrived-ness was really getting to her. She found the treasure and was about to basically walk out with it, until Lightning and the missing SeaWing burst into the cave. Turns out, the SeaWing had been hanging around the town where Lightning was kept, periodically visiting her, and figured out that Sawshark was going to find out about what they’d done, so she stole the prison keys and freed Lightning.  
As the Climactic Fight Scene(TM) began, Moon faintly heard the sound of Tsunami thinking. The stream of thoughts was slowly but surely getting louder, so she nudged Qibli and hissed “Maybe we should go.”  
And they did. Just in time, too - not three minutes later, Tsunami took a look at the stargazing ledge, making sure that no one was sneaking out when they were supposed to be asleep in their caverns.

A week later, the trio snuck away during lunch to finish watching the movie.  
Yes, the climactic moment was very cheesy indeed, and caused more laughter than was probably intended.  
And no, Sawshark and Pilotfish didn’t declare their undying love for one another. In case you were wondering.


	5. SPS (Scales Per Second)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Two minor characters contemplate Glory's decisions. (Turns out that RainWings are basically luddites.)

The RainWing village had never known monochromacy. Even if one took away the colours of the leaves and flowers and fruits and the animals that climbed and flapped, the villagers themselves were colourful. More accurately, they were colour itself, the entire optical spectrum contained in lithe bodies, playing out endlessly on their small rough scales and their diaphanous ruffs and their curving horns. They were streaks of living hue, slipping fluidly through the trees.  
Maybe this was the reason why none of the queens had been interested in television, up until the invention of coloured displays. When Queen Grandeur bought the technology off of a stray MudWing developer, the tribe had been fascinated with the glass screens that could change colour like they themselves did.  
For a while, anyway. That was at least forty years ago, if not more, and television soon became nothing more than mild entertainment. With all the vivid colour surrounding and flowing through them, who would want artificial attractions? Besides, looking at the screen too long sometimes hurt the eyes, and it wasn’t like the village picked up on that many channels anyways. (Although when she was in power, Grandeur always insisted on furthering the technology, and efforts were made, only to be aborted when the next queen took her place.)  
The village in general was pretty low-tech. The RainWings had invented communications at around the same time as the rest of Pyrrhia, but its advancement began stuttering with the introduction of the multiple-queen system. They had large, clunky mobile phones with long antennae, and they deemed that more than enough. (For the record, the RainWings might actually have been better off without the dramas brought by technology.)  
All of this changed when the rhythmic cycle of queens was broken by a young newcomer - Queen Glory, a dragonet who had never felt the sway of tree branches, who took power over a tribe she barely knew. Soon that became two tribes, with the NightWings narrowly escaping from their doomed island and residing in the rainforest.  
A few days after the NightWing Exodus, Glory basically declared that she was “unimpressed” with the low-tech village and jump-started further advancement.  
And this was when the story of the orchid grove happened.

“We don’t need this stuff,” Orchid said to Mangrove as they lay in their hammocks, listening to some of the newly-arrived NightWings making a racket on the forest floor. Mangrove’s hammock had originally been on the other side of the village, but he’d moved it to be right next to Orchid’s on her first evening back. (She shivered as she remembered that horrible ordeal - suddenly waking up in a strange country, being chained to a wall and forced to spit venom, the fiery glow on the edges of everything, the thick smoke choking her and everyone else on that cursed volcano-)  
“You’re green as leaves.” said Mangrove, hopping (almost slithering) into her hammock, twining his tail around hers. “Breathe.”  
Orchid did, then continued. “It’s all extra. The rainforest isn’t the place for things like this. Why do we need it? Why?”  
“Queen Glory saved us all,” Mangrove said. “Don’t you trust her?”  
Orchid sighed. “But she doesn’t know us - doesn’t know what we’re like. I think she thinks that the only right way is being like all the other tribes.” She spread one of her wings to its full span and sat up carefully, trying not to make the hammock shake too much. “Why do we need videos of everyday things when we can do this?”  
The membranes of her wings swirled into a dozen colours, arranging themselves into an image of a tiny dragonet perched on a branch, looking down with more than a hint of worry. The dragonet stood up, teetered uncertainly for a moment, and then jumped off the branch, gliding to the next. It looked almost as if she’d made her wing invisible to show something behind her.  
“That’s the day that Okapi first flew,” said Orchid, folding the wing back in. “Sure, it was an amazing day, but why do we need to put it down forever?”  
“Good question.” Mangrove shook his head quickly, trying to dislodge a beetle that had landed on his ruff. “Now that I think of it, why would future generations need to know everything that happened now? Our memories are like treasure - treasure only needs one dragon, and memories only need one generation.”  
Orchid smiled. “And these are certainly treasure.” She spread her wing again, and brought her own image to it. She was the seeker in a game of hide-and-seek, a dragonet jumping through the trees and searching for camouflaged players. There was Mangrove, melting out of the air. There they were talking to each other (silently of course, since RainWings could not replicate sounds as they did sights). There they were doing the venom test, and watching comets streak across the sky that night, and dancing a dance that was equal parts movement of body and shift of patterns, and and and  
“Yes, it is.” said Mangrove. He tightened the grip of his tail, and then released it and slipped out of the hammock. “It’s almost lunch. Let’s find some fruit.”  
As Orchid flew after him, over the now-quarrelling NightWings on the floor of the forest, she took comfort in the fact that some things would never change.  
(Although, who knows? Maybe her opinions would, and that would be almost like a change in the surroundings anyways.)


	6. Starflight's Internet Quest

Of course Starflight knew why the cave didn’t have Wi-Fi. All of them knew - it was to keep them and the world safe, because who knew what might happen if one of them blabbed something somewhere? And even if none of them did that, there was still the risk of being tracked down by the signals.  
This did not stop him from lamenting his lack of Internet access. Don’t get him wrong, Starflight loved the books and scrolls that the Talons had stocked the cave with, but they were just so _limited_. With the Internet at his disposal, he’d be able to get near-instant info on whatever he wanted, whenever he wanted. And the Web wasn’t just for research - there were things like funny videos he could watch, too. Maybe he could even get social with dragons from across Pyrrhia (that is, after he and his fellow Dragonets of Destiny ended the war).  
On the frequent occasion that a book or scroll couldn’t satisfy Starflight’s curiosity on a subject, the NightWing dragonet would close his eyes and think _wow, Internet access would sure be handy right about now_. He would then reassure himself by promising that, after he played his part in the prophecy, he’d buy the most advanced, best-at-number-crunching computer he could and surf ‘till he dropped.

Thanks to Clay, the Dragonet Prophecy was kickstarted both earlier and under completely different circumstances than expected. Not that Starflight could really get upset with him on that account, seeing as Clay’s actions had saved Glory’s life.  
What _did_ upset Starflight was the fact that he and his fellow dragonets BEING HELD PRISONER BY A DERANGED QUEEN WHO DIDN’T CARE IN THE SLIGHTEST THAT THEY WERE PROPHESIED SAVIOURS. Actually, “upset” was far, far too mild a word - he was _utterly terrified out of his scales_. He was separated from everyone he knew, no one seemed to be coming to save them, and the way things kept going, there was an almost 100% chance he’d be killed in the arena at some point in the next week. His heart thudded constantly and painfully against his ribcage, as if he were constantly in most intense flight.  
Two nights into this horrifying ordeal, Starflight lay on his rock spire, listening intently to everyone in earshot, hoping to catch just a single word that would prove to him he wasn’t definitely doomed. Two of the guards were having an oddly casual conversation somewhere below, and one of them mentioned his SnoutBook account…  
Starflight’s terror-and-sleeplessness-frazzled brain kicked into overdrive. _SnoutBook - INTERNET ACCESS!_  
That night, he had to resist the temptation to scream “GIVE ME A FREAKING COMPUTER! I NEED TO SURF!” loud enough for the whole city to hear.  
(Holy cow, brain-burnout really did do weird things to dragons.)

“Do they have Wi-Fi in the Night Kingdom?”  
Morrowseer turned to look at Starflight, as did a couple of the others in his crew. The cave they’d stopped in wasn’t very large, and the tightly-packed NightWing bodies only served to make it stuffy. Come to think of it, it was kind of like the game room under the mountain, except without even the most basic of technology.  
“Really, Starflight? That’s the only question you have about what’s happening?” asked one of the strangers in a mocking tone of voice.  
He looked down at his talons, suddenly feeling quite ashamed.  
“That’s not important,” said Morrowseer, a hint of a growl in his speech. “Because we’re not even taking you to the Night Kingdom to begin with.”  
“Oh.”  
He hoped he’d get lucky in the next kingdom.

Unfortunately, Starflight and the other dragonets (sans, of course, Tsunami) were pretty much all prisoners again as soon as they hit the waves.  
When one of the food-delivering guards poked her sapphire-blue head into the dragonets’ cell, Starflight took a hold of himself and asked the big question.  
“Do you have Wi-Fi here?” He inwardly cursed at the shakiness of his voice, but it wasn’t like he could do a second take.  
“Not for you,” said the guard.  
“Come on, I’m a g-guest here,” he mumbled, but the guard had slipped away by then.

Starflight honestly hadn’t been expecting too much of the Rain Kingdom, but he was still a little disappointed.  
As Jambu made a call to his friend Boto, Starflight examined the phone with interest. He’d seen very few phones in his life, but even those brief glimpses allowed him to tell that this was an old model.  
“So,” he began once Jambu hung up, “do you-“  
Jambu jumped slightly, then relaxed and greeted him. “Oh, hi, Starwing! Watcha want?”  
Starflight decided not to correct him. “Do you have Wi-Fi?”  
The pink RainWing thought for a few seconds.  
“We do have a couple of computers in a hut on the edge of the village,” he said, “but they don’t work very well.”  
Starflight groaned internally.

The Night Kingdom was indubitably horrible, even more so because it tempted him. So many gadgets, and he wasn’t allowed to touch any of them.  
Everywhere he looked, Starflight saw tech. The dorms had security cameras lining the walls, which was distinctly creepy but also a bit cool. Everyone seemed to have at least one laptop in their neck-bag. And when he bumped into Fatespeaker for the first time, she had a completely flat device that worked on the touch of scales alone. Apparently she’d stolen it from someone.  
“Do you have Wi-Fi?” he asked.  
“No,” said Fatespeaker, “but I foresee that-“  
“Thanks anyway.”  
(He almost cried later.)

Starflight probably wouldn’t ever cry again, not after that fireball hit him in the face.  
Slowly, he was growing used to living without sight. Tamarin, one of the RainWings, was helping him out, so it wasn’t as hard as it could’ve been. He was still bitter over the fact that he’d never gotten to see the wonders of the Internet at work, but it was a small price to pay for saving his entire tribe from extinction.  
Besides, even online seeing wasn’t everything. There was such a thing as assistive technology, devices that could allow him to hear or even feel what was on the screen.  
And Starflight decided that he was going to make the best of them all. Assistive technology made by someone who needed assistive technology himself.  
He told Clay, Sunny, and Tsunami about his idea, and a few days later Sunny walked into his living quarters with some good news.  
“Hey, Starflight!” she said, sitting down next to him. She smelled the same as always - like sand and lizards and sunlight. It was a pleasant scent, but to him it had lost the edge it had had just several weeks ago. That special edge had crept into Fatespeaker’s scent instead, the smell of hard rocks and cool nights with the slightest hint of ocean.  
“What is it?” he asked.  
“I think you’ll like hearing this.” She took a deep breath. “My mom told me that Glory made a trade deal with her! You know, to help you with your computer project.”  
He almost shrieked with happiness.

Some months later, after the day drew to a close and he was the only one left in the library, Starflight opened his new desktop and rested his paws on the keys. Feeling the runes encoded in raised dots, he keyed in the password he’d decided on.  
The computer started up, and, talons trembling, Starflight slipped the attached headphones on.  
When the mechanical (but almost-draconic) voice told him where the Safari icon was, and helped him all the way to a Wiki article on the exports of the Sand Kingdom, he shook all over with joy.  
“It worked!” he cried happily. “It worked!”  
And with that, Starflight’s longstanding goal of accessing the Internet reached completion. Sure, maybe not in the exact way he’d been imagining it all these years, but hey, the universe throws curves all the time. (And who cares whether a line is straight or curved, as long as it has a beginning and an end?)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If I got any of the assistive tech stuff wrong, feel free to correct me!


	7. The Scald Coral Challenge

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for my long absence. Life kind of got in the way.
> 
> Hope you enjoy this chapter regardless.

_So, Turtle, do you want to come up with us?_ Fin asked, looking inquisitively at his brother.  
_Why?_ Turtle asked, hurriedly putting away his enchanted slate, which had a vague idea scrawled out on it.  
_We’re going to do the Scald Coral Challenge._ Fin explained.  
_What’s that?_  
_It’s when you film yourself eating a piece of scald coral and put the video online. Fifteen of us are gonna do it._  
Turtle panicked for a moment - he REALLY didn’t want to run the risk of getting Internet-famous - but then realized that Fin had never said he had to actually get in front of the camera.  
_I’ll come with you, but I don’t want you to film me._  
Fin Aquatic-shrugged. _Alrighty then._  
They swam off, Fin in the lead and Turtle following him, with several more brothers joining as they neared the surface of the water. It wasn’t a long swim until they reached their destination - an outcropping of rock that just barely poked above the waves, big enough for maybe three or four adult dragons to stand on if they were to curl their tails in. All of the SeaWing princes over the age of one were gathered there, either swimming around the rock or already on top of it.  
“You got the camera, Cerulean?” Fin asked, breaking the surface of the water and climbing onto the rock. Cerulean nodded, holding up his waterproof phone.  
“Good.” Fin walked several steps forward and stopped, turning around. “OK, start!”  
Cerulean began filming, and Fin began to talk.  
“Hi, Internet! This is Prince Fin of the SeaWings, here with twenty of the other princes, and we are going to do the Scald Coral Challenge!” He turned his head and nodded, looking at someone behind him. “Octopus, let’s do this!”  
Octopus padded over to Fin’s side and reached into the pouch slung around his neck, pulling out a small piece of scald coral. Fin took it and popped it into his mouth. Immediately, his eyes widened and a small squeak escaped from somewhere in the back of his throat, but he quickly chewed up the coral and gulped it down.  
“T-that wasn’t even that hot!” he tried to claim, as he quickly slunk off the rock and into the ocean. Attempting to get rid of the taste, no doubt. Turtle knew that wouldn’t end well - water was taken into the gills through the mouth, after all, and when your mouth had traces of burning powder in it, attempting to breathe underwater would not end well.  
“Who’s next?” asked Octopus, ignoring Fin’s sudden resurfacing and accompanying shriek.  
“Me!” Sea Foam, one of the youngest brothers, sidled up next to him. Octopus looked in his pouch for a few seconds before pulling out a very small piece. Sea Foam ate it, and judging by how similar his reaction was to Fin’s, Turtle began to suspect that this would be a surprisingly boring challenge to watch.  
He was right, mostly. There were a few surprises - who knew that Triggerfish and Box Jelly were so tolerant to spiciness? - but for the most part, everyone had some variation on the same reaction. Even Chiton’s sudden outburst of half-yelled, half-flashed cursing failed to dispel the overall boringness of the event.  
Finally, Mantis Shrimp swallowed his piece. Cerulean ended the video with a “That’s it, folks!”, and Turtle breathed a sigh of relief. The challenge was finally over, and now they could all go back to the palace in peace.  
“Hey, where do you think you’re going?”  
Turtle yelped as a sudden pressure was placed on his tail. He turned around and saw Fin looming over him, holding his tail in place with a single paw.  
“You never said you wouldn’t eat any coral, you know.” said Fin. “You just said you didn’t want to be filmed.”  
“Wait, wha-“  
Turtle never finished his sentence, as Octopus quickly chucked a piece of coral in his mouth before speeding away into the depths of the ocean.  
“GAAAAAAHH!” The pain! Turtle felt like his mouth was on fire, tongue being reduced to ashes as he flailed. His pinned tail jerked wildly, and he quickly half spat, half coughed out the piece. The horrible burning persisted, and Turtle snapped his jaws, ducking down and rinsing his mouth out with water.  
“Sorry, brother,” said Fin, releasing his tail, “but-“  
Turtle was under the waves before he could finish.

___(That evening, Fin and Octopus gave some of their fish to Turtle. It was flatfish, his favourite._  
_Thanks, I guess,_ said Turtle.  
_Oh, no problem._ Octopus replied. _Dad’s making us do this._  
Turtle promised himself that, when they next saw each other, he’d give his father as much of a hug as he could.  
Just a day in the dysfunctional royal household of the SeaWing princes.) 


End file.
